1. Field
The following description relates to selecting at least one fingerprint template from among a plurality of fingerprint templates as a representative fingerprint template and updating attribute information of one or more feature points that are included in the representative fingerprint template.
2. Description of the Related Art
Biometric authentication has recently been popular and widespread because the intrinsic physical traits of humans that are subject to biometrics, such as, for example, fingerprints, iris patterns, voice patterns, facial features, and blood vessels vary from one person to another, do not need to be carried around, are less likely to be stolen or counterfeited, and almost stay the same throughout the lifetime.
Fingerprint recognition, from among other biometric authentication techniques, has been most widely used for various reasons such as, for example, the convenience of use, high security, high cost effectiveness, and the like.
Fingerprint-based user authentication begins with the registration and storing of fingerprint images that are to be used in fingerprint authentication. Then, in response to a fingerprint image being received from a user who is to be authenticated, the received fingerprint image may be compared with the registered fingerprint images, and a determination may be made as to whether the user is a legitimate user based on whether there is a match for the received fingerprint image among the registered fingerprint images.
In this process, not only the quality of the received fingerprint image but also the quality of the registered fingerprint images considerably affects the performance of fingerprint authentication. That is, registered fingerprint images with poor quality may lead to a deterioration of the performance of fingerprint authentication regardless of the use of high-performance authentication algorithms with excellent restoration capabilities.